When a nobleman neglects his private duties to his home estates and spends his fortune in fitting out ships to seek gold and jewels, and to damage the trade of a country he hates, different estimates will be formed of the honesty and nobility of the motives by which he is prompted.
We shall see in the sketch of George Clifford's life how various motives, good and indifferent, urged him to play the sea-king.
He was born in his father's castle at Brougham, Westmorland, in August 1558, being fourteenth baron Clifford of Westmorland. His family history had been distinguished, for the Fair Rosamond of Henry II. was a Clifford, and in the wars of York and Lancaster the Cliffords took a prominent part on the Lancastrian side. When George was still a boy his father brought about his betrothment to the Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford. He was being educated at Battle Abbey when his father died, and later he went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to complete his studies under Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Master of Trinity. He also proceeded to Oxford for a time, as was not unusual in those days.
Before he was nineteen he was married to his betrothed in St. Mary Overy's Church, Southwark: the young lady was scarce seventeen years old. Clifford was a young man of expensive tastes. Amongst his other qualifications for Court life he excelled all the nobles of his time in tilting, and soon won the recognition of the Queen by his prowess in the Westminster tilt-yard. So he was made a Knight of the Garter, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age was appointed one of the forty Peers by whom Mary Queen of Scots was tried at Fotheringay Castle, in Nottinghamshire.
Was it policy, or love of adventure, or just desire for gain? The Earl soon began to form schemes for sending ships to plunder the Spaniards; he fitted out at his own cost the Red Dragon of 260 tons, and the barque Clifford of 130. Raleigh sent a pinnace to join them, and they sailed in 1586 under the command of Robert Withrington. They took a few merchantmen on their way to Sierra Leone; the principle on which they acted was a mixture of courtesy and bullying. Hakluyt says: "Our Admiral hailed their Admiral with courteous words, willing him to strike his sails and come aboard, but he refused; whereupon our Admiral lent him a piece of ordnance" (it sounds so kind and friendly) "which they repaid double, so that we grew to some little quarrel." The result was that the English boarded the hulks and helped themselves. For they found the hulks were laden in Lisbon with Spanish goods, and so thought them fair game. When they reached Guinea they went ashore, and in their search for water and wood came suddenly upon a town of negroes, who struck up the drum, raised a yell, and shot off arrows as thick as hail.
The English returned the fire, having about thirty calivers, and retired to their boats, "having reasonable store of fish"; "and amongst the rest we hauled up a great foul monster, whose head and back were so hard that no sword could enter it; but being thrust in under the belly in divers places, much wounded, he bent a sword in his mouth as a man would do a girdle of leather about his hand: he was in length about nine feet, and had nothing in his belly but a certain quantity of small stones." Later on they found another town of about two hundred houses and "walled about with mighty great trees and stakes, so thick that a rat could hardly get in or out." They got in, for the negroes had fled, and found the town finely and cleanly kept, "that it was an admiration to us all, for that neither in the houses nor streets was so much dust to be found as would fill an egg-shell." The English found little to take except some mats and earthen pots; was it for this that they, on their departure, set the town on fire? "It was burnt in a quarter of an hour, the houses being covered with reeds and straw."
Thence they sailed across to America, having no little trouble with a disease which they had caught ashore. They came to Buenos Ayres, where was great store of corn, cattle, and wine; but no gold or silver was to be had. Here they fell into some contention as to their further course, but as food was growing scarce they sailed northwards, till they came to Bahia, where they met a hot welcome of balls and bullets, but took some prizes. Then came a storm, and some of their prizes got loose and were lost. "Anon the people of the country came down amaine upon us and beset us round, and shot at us with their bows and arrows."
Of another fight which occurred shortly after, when the barque Clifford was boarded by the enemy, the merchant Sarracoll says: "Giving a mighty shout they came all aboard together, crying, 'Entrad! Entrad!' but our men received them so hotly, with small shot and pikes, that they killed them like dogs. And thus they continued aboard almost a quarter of an hour, thinking to have devoured our men, pinnace and all ... but God, who is the giver of all victories, so blessed our small company that the enemy having received a mighty foil was glad to rid himself from their hands: whereas at their entrance we esteemed them to be no less than betwixt two and three hundred men in the galley, we could scarce perceive twenty men at their departure stand on their legs; but the greater part of them was slain, their oars broken and the galley hanging upon one side, as a sow that hath lost her left ear, with the number of dead and dying that lay one upon another." While this terrible havoc was a doing, others of the crew had gone ashore and fetched sixteen young bullocks, "which was to our great comforts and refreshing."
After committing what havoc they could along the coast, with little profit to themselves, the commander resolved to go home; which resolution was "taken heavily of all the company—for very grief to see my Lord's hopes thus deceived, and his great expenses cast away."
The Earl took part in the Armada fight on board the Bonadventure, and the Queen, to mark her approbation, gave him a commission to go the same year as General to the Court of Spain, lending him the Golden Lion; this ship he victualled and furnished at his own expense. After taking one merchant ship and weathering a storm, he was obliged to turn.
But the Queen was his good friend and lent him the Victory, and with three smaller ships and 400 men he sailed from Plymouth in 1589. We do not hear what his Countess thought of so much wandering into danger, but duty, or profit, called her lord to the high seas. He made a few prizes, French and German, for he was not too scrupulous about nationalities, and made for the Azores, where he cut out four ships. At Flores he manned his boats and obtained food and water from Don Antonio, a pretender to the throne of Portugal. As they were rowing back to their ship, "the boat was pursued two miles by a monstrous fish, whose fins many times appeared above water four or five yards asunder, and his jaws gaping a yard and a half wide, not without great danger of overturning the pinnace and devouring some of the company"; they rowed at last away from the monster. They were now joined by a ship of Raleigh's and two others.
Meanwhile the richly laden vessels of Spain were on their way home, with orders to rendezvous at St. Helena. Some of the Earl's cruisers sighted them, but did not dare attack the huge carracks, though Linschoten tells us—and he was aboard one of them—that if the English had attacked they must easily have been taken; for scurvy, caused by bad food, was making ravages on the crews. "Every day men who had been some days dead were discovered in the places whither they had crept that they might lie down and die in peace." But all the English cruisers did was to insult them with reproaches and annoy them with musketry, and such small cannon-shot as vessels of thirty tons could carry. As Admiral Colomb used to say, "A captain of a man-of-war in those days could carry a cannon-ball in his coat-tail pocket," so small and light were they.
When the Earl was told that the West Indian fleet had sailed past, he returned to Fayal and took possession of the town, consisting then of some five hundred well-built houses; the inhabitants had abandoned it at his approach. He set a guard to preserve the churches and monasteries and stayed there four days, till a ransom of 2000 ducats, mostly in church-plate, was brought to him, with sixty butts of wine.
While taking two Brazilian ships at St. Mary's laden with sugar, the bar detained his vessel in a position exposed to the enemy; eighty of his men were killed, the Earl was wounded slightly in the side; "his head also was broken with stones, so that the blood covered his face, and both his face and legs were burnt with fire-balls."
On their way home they fell in with a Portuguese ship laden with sugar, hides, and silver. Full of joy at their good speed they resolved upon going home. Captain Lister was sent in the prize to Portsmouth. He was wrecked at Helcliff, in Cornwall; all in her was lost, and only five lives saved. The Earl was delayed so long by bad weather that drink began to fail, and they had to collect what they could in sheets during a storm of rain. Many licked the moist boards and masts with their tongues, like dogs. In every corner of the ship were heard the lamentable cries of the sick and hurt, ten or twelve men died every night. Yet, we are told, the Earl ever encouraged his men by his presence of mind and his example; then they spoke a vessel which helped them with a little beer, and at last they put into Ventre-haven on the west coast of Ireland.
On arriving in London, as if the Earl had not suffered enough already, news was brought him that his eldest son was dead. But shortly after came another messenger announcing the birth of a daughter; this was the Lady Anne Clifford, who became, first, Countess of Dorset, and then of Pembroke. In this voyage thirteen prizes had been taken, and the profit doubled the outlay on his adventure in spite of the loss of his richest prize. It is difficult to realise the exceeding bitter feeling that existed between Spain and England at that time—a bitterness sharpened by religious differences, and kept in memory by private revenge.
For instance, Hakluyt tells us of a small English ship of about forty tons which was captured on the seas. Her crew were put by the Spaniards under hatches and coupled in bolts together; these men, after they had been prisoners three or four days, were murdered by a Spanish ensign-bearer, who had had a brother killed in the Armada fight, and who wished to revenge his death. This man took a poniard in his hand and went down under the hatches, where he found eight Englishmen sitting in chains, and with the same poniard he stabbed six of them to the heart; the remaining two clasped each other about the middle and threw themselves into the sea and there were drowned.
It is only fair to say that this act was much disliked by the other Spaniards, who carried the ensign-bearer a prisoner to Lisbon. The King of Spain willed he should be sent to England, that the Queen might treat him as she thought good; however, his friends interceded that he might be beheaded instead. On a Good Friday, as the Cardinal was going to Mass, captains and commanders stopped his Eminence and entreated for the man's pardon, and in the end they got his pardon, and his life was saved.
In 1592 the Earl of Cumberland hired the Tiger of 600 tons, and with his own ship the Samson, the Golden Noble, and two small vessels, he set forth. Contrary winds kept him east of Plymouth so long that it became too late to intercept the outward-bound carracks, so the Earl transferred his command to Captain Norton and returned to London. After some hard fighting the ships returned with a richly laden carrack. The narrator of the voyage moralises upon the happy finding thus: "I cannot but enter into the acknowledgment of God's great favour towards our nation, who, by putting this purchase into our hands, hath manifestly discovered those secret trades and Indian riches which hitherto lay strangely hidden from us ... whereby it should seem that the will of God for our good is to have us communicate with them in those East Indian treasures, and by the erection of a lawful traffic to better our means to advance true religion and His holy service." The pious sailor then goes on to enumerate the goods that were stored in the holds of the Spanish carrack—from jewels and silks of China to spices and carpets of Turkey—in all estimated to be worth £150,000. This was of course to be divided amongst the adventurers.
But exaggerated expectations ended in general discontent, for the Queen had one small ship at the capture of the carrack, and because the Earl was not commanding in person his share was adjudged to depend on her Majesty's mercy and bounty. The royal lioness "dealt but indifferently with him." She took her share, and the other jackals helped themselves as largely as they dared; so that the Earl was fain to accept of £36,000 for him and his, as a pure gift. The carrack was unloaded at Dartmouth, and being so huge and unwieldy she was never removed from the river, "but there laid up her bones."
The spirit of adventure in the Earl was not quenched by this disappointment, for in the latter end of 1593 he got ready two ships royal and seven others, which set sail next spring. Off the isle of Flores he met the Portuguese fleet and had to stand off to avoid them, as they were too numerous to attack. He was taken ill and would have died, had not Monson gone ashore on Corvo and stolen a milch cow, which they brought aboard. Twelve hulks yielded him some treasure, and he left for home after a gainful voyage.
Three of his ships he had sent to the West Indies, and they made for the pearl fisheries at Margarita. A Spaniard treacherously showed them where the pearls were stored in a ranckeria; they surprised it by night with twenty-eight men and carried off £2000 worth of pearls. Coasting along, two of them fell in with seven ships, moored alongside head and stern, and fought all day, hammer-and-tongs. The Spaniards got into their boats next day and made for the land, carrying the rudders with them; the English helped themselves and fired the ships. They then brought the chief ship of 250 tons safely to Plymouth.
Next year the Earl set forth on his eighth voyage, and in June came in sight of a big Indian ship whose name was Las Cinque Llagas ("the Five Wounds"), and she carried 1400 persons, of whom 270 were slaves.
The Earl's Mayflower was the first to get up to her, and was hotly fired into; for the Portuguese had sworn to defend their ship to the last, and fought with desperation. Don Rodrigo de Cordoba, having both his legs shattered, cried out, "Sirs, I have got this in the discharge of my duty. Be of good heart. Let no one forsake his post; let us perish rather than be taken."
Twice did the English board, and twice were they driven out with great loss. Downton the rear-admiral was crippled for life, and Cave, who commanded the Earl's ship, was mortally wounded by a shot through both legs. To make the hideous scene worse, fire was thrown about and the Cinque Llagas caught and began to burn.
A Franciscan friar, Antonio, was seen standing with a crucifix in his hand, encouraging the crew to commit themselves to the waves and God's mercy, rather than die in the flames, and a vast number plunged into the sea. It is said that the English boats made no attempt to save these unfortunates, but the English themselves were on fire and were probably busy putting their own ships in order. But the rear-admiral's boat picked up Nuno Velho and some others; Nuno had been Governor of Mozambique and had been only recently shipwrecked and rescued by the Cinque Llagas. There were also on board two Portuguese ladies of high birth, Doña Isabel Pereira and her beautiful daughter, Doña Luiza de Mello. They had been wrecked in the Santo Alberto, and had since travelled through Kaffraria on foot nearly a thousand miles. The young lady was travelling home to take possession of her entailed property at Evora. In the confusion and panic they could get no attention, and fear of something worse than death urged them to fasten themselves together with a Franciscan cord and leap into the sea. Their bodies, so bound together, were at length cast up on the shore of the island of Fayal.
Nuno Velho and Braz Correa, captain of the Nazareth, were taken as prisoners to England, where the Earl treated them hospitably for a whole year. It was perhaps not wholly from kindly and unselfish motives, for in the end Nuno Velho paid three thousand cruzados for the ransom of both.
As for the Cinque Llagas, she burned all day and all night, but "the next morning her powder, being sixty barrels, blew her abroad, so that most of the ship did swim in parts above the water."
Towards the end of June they fell in with another great ship, which they at first took for S. Philip, the admiral of Spain, and were mighty cautious how they approached her guns. But seeing she was a carrack they bestowed on her some shot and summoned her to yield, unless she would undergo the same fate as the Five Wounds. But the Portuguese captain was a brave man and replied: "I acknowledge Don Philip, King of Spain, not the Queen of England. If the Earl of Cumberland has been at the burning of the Cinque Llagas, so have I, D. Luis Continho, been at the defeat and capture of Sir Richard Grenville in the Revenge. Do what you dare, Earl, for your Queen, and I, Luis, will do what I can for my King. My ship is homeward bound from India, laden with riches, and with many jewels on board. Come and take her if ye can."
The fight was renewed, but the English, having already many officers killed and wounded, and by reason of the "murmuring of some disordered and cowardly companions," sailed away for England, having done much harm to the enemy and little good to themselves.
So the Earl returned to England, and at once set about building a ship big enough to lie alongside any of the Spanish vessels; she was 900 tons, the largest ship ever yet built by a British subject. The Queen was so pleased by the Earl's spirit that she, at the launching of the big ship, gave it the name of the Scourge of Malice.
Her first voyage in 1595 was not a success, for as they reached Plymouth a command was received from her Majesty that the Earl should return. So he sent Captain Langton on, who took three Dutch ships that were carrying ammunition and provisions for the King of Spain, and returned to England.
The ninth expedition in 1596, led by the Earl in his new ship, with the Dreadnought of the Royal Navy, was also a failure; for a violent storm split the Earl's mainmast and he had to return home.
In 1597 the Earl obtained letters-patent authorising him to levy sea and land forces, and he began to prepare the largest expedition which had ever been undertaken by a private individual without royal help; it consisted of eighteen sail, and the Earl took the command in person.
His design was, first, to impoverish the King of Spain; secondly, to catch the outward-bound fleet as it sailed from the Tagus. If this failed, then thirdly, to seize some town or island that would yield him riches.
They set out on the 6th of March, but in a few hours the masts of the Scourge of Malice began to show weakness, and she had to put in near Lisbon and be repaired. They worked night and day, fearing to be discovered, while the other vessels kept out at sea. On rejoining his fleet he heard that a ship from England with Spaniards on board had sailed into the Tagus and warned the Indian fleet. The carracks remained therefore under cover of the fort's guns, and the Earl sailed for the Canaries, where he landed on Lancerota, "borrowed some necessaries," as the looting was described, and found his men had got drunk and were mutinous. So the Earl preached them a sermon and threatened to hang the sinners on the next offence. Hence they sailed across the Atlantic to Dominica, where the inhabitants welcomed them, as they too hated the Spaniards; here they found a hot spring at the north-west end of the island. "The bath is as hot as the King's bath in the city of Bath." Here their sick men disported themselves and found "good refreshing." They were enchanted with the beauty of the valleys and trees and rivers and gathered new strength. Then they went on to Puerto Rico, the key of all the Indies, and the Earl assured his men that the island was rich, and they must take the town. "The Indian soldiers," he said, "live too pleasantly to venture their lives. They will make a great show, and perhaps endure one brunt, but if they do any more, tear me to pieces!"
So they landed on a beach four leagues from the town and marched on the hot sand, now and again paddling in the cool waves like merry children. A negro was compelled to lead them, and they had to clamber over rough rocks till they came to an entrance of an arm of the sea and saw that the town was set upon a little island. Then were they at their wits' ends how to cross over, but as they had seen some horsemen, the Earl thought there must be a passage. By dint of bullying the negro they made him show a path "through the most wickedest wood that ever I was in in all my life." By sunset they came to a long and narrow causeway leading to a drawbridge which linked the little island with the greater one. But the bridge was up, and they asked the negro if it were possible to ford the passage: "Yes, at ebb-tide, massa," he replied. So they lay down and slept, being very tired. Two hours before day the alarm was quietly given, "for we needed not but to shake our ears." As they advanced along the rugged causeway the Earl's shield-bearer stumbled and fell against his master, knocking him into the sea, where, being by reason of his heavy armour unable to rise, he was in great danger of drowning. He swallowed so much salt-water that he was extremely sick, and had to lie down whilst the assault was going on. But the Spaniards resisted stoutly, the tide too came up, and the English had to retire with a loss of fifty men.
A second attempt with a vessel was more successful and the Spaniards were driven from their fort. When the Earl's men entered the town they found only women and old men. The men had retired to another fort and refused to yield; so two batteries were brought up and "began to speak very loud."
During the siege the Earl had to punish a good soldier of his "for over-violent spoiling a gentlewoman of her jewels." The man was hanged in the market-place in the presence of many Spaniards. A sailor too, who had defaced a church, was condemned to die. Twice he was taken to the gallows, and twice he was removed in obedience to the clamours for his pardon. In a few days the Spaniards demanded a parley and surrendered, carrying their arms.
But the climate of the island began to tell on the health of the English. Books had their glued backs melted by the heat, candied fruits lost their crust, and English comfits grew liquid. In July more than 200 died, and twice as many were sick of a flux and hot ague, with the limbs cold and weak. So the Earl made haste to store the hides, ginger, and sugar, also the town's guns and ammunition. He put on board, too, specimens of the sensitive plant, of which the chaplain said: "It hath a property confounding my understanding, for if you lay a finger upon the leaves of it, the leaves will contract and wither and disdainfully withdraw themselves, as if they would slip themselves rather than be touched."
The Earl soon sailed for the Azores, hoping to catch the Mexican fleet; but he found that the homeward-bound carracks had already passed and the Mexican fleet was not expected, so in disappointment they sailed home. Seven hundred out of the thousand men who had landed at Puerto Rico had died, and the Spaniards had, knowing this, refused to ransom the city. So this grand expedition became a very serious loss to the Earl, but it was the cause of a greater loss to Spain, by preventing the carracks from going to or returning from the Indies. This was the Earl of Cumberland's last venture. Fuller eulogises him as "a person wholly composed of true honour and valour." But when we reflect that prodigal expenditure at Court, display at the tilting-field, and losses in horse-racing were amongst the incentives to these rash exploits, we must place him a little lower than old Fuller does. However, the Earl compares to advantage with our modern spendthrifts, most of whom will make no effort to retrieve their ruined fortunes, and expect their kind relations to support them in idleness. The Earl of Cumberland played a man's part, and was not above serving his country as well as his personal interests. There was something heroic about him even in his actions at Court.
For they say that on one of these occasions the Queen dropped her glove, either by accident, or from some coquettish fancy natural to her. The Earl picked it up, and on his knee presented the glove to her. "My Lord, an it please thee, keep it in my memory," she murmured. The courtier put the glove into his bosom and bowed low. Another would have hidden it in a cabinet, labelled and dated, but the Earl sent the glove to his jeweller, and had it emblazoned with diamonds. It was then set in front of his hat and worn at all public assemblies when he was likely to appear before the Queen.
In his youth the Earl had fallen in love with the daughter of Sir William Hollis, a lovely and beautiful girl. But her father rejected the proposal of the Earl, much to his discontent—"My daughter shall marry a good gentleman with whom I can enjoy society and friendship, and I will not have a son-in-law before whom I must stand cap in hand." He next paid his addresses to Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, Earl of Bedford, and was accepted. She bore him two sons, both of whom died in infancy, and a daughter, to whom he left £15,000—a young lady who inherited the common sense of her mother and the high spirit of both parents.
This charming girl, Lady Anne, married first Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. She seems to have been one of the last in England to support the old baronial dignity of feudal times. She had the honour of erecting a monument to the poet Spenser, founded two hospitals, and repaired or built seven churches and six castles—no bad record for one lady of noble blood.
It is said that one of her friends advised her to be more sparing in building churches and castles now the Lord Protector Cromwell was in power; for he might take it in hand to demolish them.
"Let him destroy them if he will," she replied proudly; "he shall surely find, as often as he does so, I will rebuild them while he leaves me a shilling in my pocket."
It has been conjectured that Martin Frobisher was the son of Francis Frobisher, who in the year 1535 was Mayor of Doncaster, and lived at Finningley, some seven miles south-east of Doncaster. One historian claims Frobisher as a Devon man, but Fuller in his "Worthies" writes: "Why should Devonshire, which hath a flock of worthies of her own, take a lamb from another county?" Another tells us that Frobisher was born at Normanton in Yorkshire, and was about as old as Humphrey Gilbert.
Lock, an adventurer and merchant of London, says in his Memoir that Martin "was born of honest parentage, a gentleman of a good house and antiquity, who in his youth, for lack of schools thereabout, sent him to London, where he was put to Sir John York, knight, being his kinsman; he, perceiving Martin to be of great spirit and bold courage and natural hardness of body, sent him in a ship to the Gold Country of Guinea, in company of other ships sent out by divers merchants of London." This was in the autumn of 1554: it was one of the first expeditions sent out from England to explore the western coast of Africa, and was commanded by John Lock. They landed on the Gold Coast and began a prosperous trade in gold and elephants' teeth, returning to London in 1555. For eleven years after this little is known of Frobisher's doings, except that he made more voyages to West Africa and to the Levant in the Mediterranean.
In 1566 he had risen to the rank of captain, and was apparently noted for his daring voyages, as in May of that year he was examined by order of the Queen's Council on suspicion of having fitted out a ship for piracy.
In 1572, when he was lodging at Lambeth after one of his voyages, one Ralph Whalley called upon him at his lodging and introduced himself as a follower of the Earl of Desmond, an Anglo-Irish nobleman, at that time imprisoned in the Tower for treason. He was the head of the great house of the southern Fitzgeralds, who were all-powerful in Munster, but Sir Henry Sidney, by Queen Elizabeth's orders, had sent him on arrest to England. He surrendered his property into the Queen's hands, but was committed for security to the Tower.
Whalley explained all this to Frobisher, and suggested how profitable it would be to help this deserving gentleman to escape out of England. Why should he be kept in the Tower? he had done no ill to any one. Frobisher was appealed to as a daring sailor, well known by repute in all the ale-houses where the sign of the bush was hung out, and as generous as he was brave.
Well, the idea was that the Earl, having got free out of the Tower, should be carried in an oyster-boat as far as Gravesend, and there should embark on board a ship to be provided by Frobisher.
The reward which Whalley held out, to counterbalance the risk incurred in helping a prisoner to escape, was a share in the vessel of the value of £500, and a free gift from Earl Desmond of his island of Valentia, on the coast of Derry. We do not know whether Frobisher entertained the idea of helping Desmond; probably he thought it too risky, for the attempt was not made. Possibly on thinking it over Frobisher believed it to be his duty to inform the Government, for he signed a declaration four months later in which he describes the Lambeth incident. Desmond did get away later on and broke out in rebellion in Ireland, only to be killed at last in an Irish cabin. Frobisher had latterly been employed by the Government in sailing along the Irish coast to intimidate rebels and prevent the landing of foreign sympathisers. This he continued to do for three or four years after the Lambeth incident, and so he came under the notice of Burghley and the Queen, and won the friendship of Sir Henry Sidney and Sidney's favourite, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Now Sir Humphrey was the chief promoter of attempts to find a north-west passage to the Indies; he and Frobisher must have had many a long talk together over the Arctic map; and at last the Queen heard of the idea and granted a licence in 1575 to Master Martin Frobisher, and divers gentlemen associated with him, for finding a north-west passage to Cathay.
The chief argument in Frobisher's mind which proved the existence of such a passage was that Nature did all things in harmony. Now, as she had made a fair communication between the Southern Atlantic and the Pacific, so she would be found to have established the same water-way between the Northern Atlantic and the Pacific. It was of the same order of reasoning as the old theory that "Nature abhors a vacuum."
However, it seemed so very reasonable that many moneyed men in the city of London were willing and anxious to spend money on the search. Lock subscribed £100, Sir Thomas Gresham £100, Lord Burghley £50, the Earls of Sussex, Leicester, Warwick £50 each, and others smaller sums, until a fund of £875 was secured; in modern currency this was equivalent to some £6000, but was not sufficient for carrying out the project.
Frobisher went about London, Lock tells us, a sad man and thoughtful; Lock lent him books and maps, and got him friends and subscriptions, but still the fund remained insufficient. "I made my house his home, my purse his purse, and my credit his credit, when he was utterly destitute both of money and credit and of friends."
The ships were, however, being furnished in the docks, and after all the many conferences in Fleet Street and Mark Lane, and even at Greenwich Court, still the money came slowly in. At last, by May 1576, two strongly built barques, the Gabriel and the Michael, each of 25 tons burden, together with a small pinnace of 10 tons, lay ready in the Thames, hard by old London Bridge. Frobisher received his commission as admiral, Hall and Griffin were masters, and Chancellor purser of the voyage. They numbered about forty officers and men, and started on the 7th of June.
As they sailed off Deptford the pinnace was run down by a vessel coming up stream; her bowsprit and foremast were broken, and twenty-four hours were spent in doing repairs.
At midday on Friday the vessels sailed past Greenwich, firing guns as a salute in honour of the Court. The Queen sat at a window watching them, and waved her hand in token of farewell.
Anon she sent a messenger in a rowing-boat to tell her brave seamen that she liked well their doings and thanked them for it, and also willed that Master Frobisher should come the next day to the Court to take his leave of her. This he did with a beating heart; for was not his ambition of fifteen years being now satisfied!
They sailed round the western coast of England and Scotland, and halted in the Shetlands to calk the Gabriel, for she was leaking, and to take in water. Sailing west from the Faroe Islands they caught sight of "some high and ragged land rising like pinnacles of steeples"—perhaps the south of Greenland. They could not land for "the great store of ice that lay along the coast, and the great mists that troubled them not a little."
As they sailed north and west a great storm arose and swept away the pinnace, so that they saw her no more. Next day they lost the Michael, but her crew, after waiting about on the ice-bound coast of Labrador, concluded that Frobisher and the rest in the Gabriel were drowned, and so they returned home and came to Bristol on the 1st of September.
And now Frobisher in the Gabriel, with eighteen mariners and gentlemen, pushed boldly on, undaunted by the strange perils that surrounded them, and they reached the group of islands lying westward of what is now called Davis's Straits. Neither could they land for the ice, snow, and fog, but at last found a resting-place on an island which Frobisher called "Hall's Island," for that Hall, master of the Gabriel, there first landed. Thence he sailed into a bay and called it "Frobisher's Straits," thinking it would lead them to India.
Once, on landing, they saw some things floating in the sea afar off, which they thought to be porpoises, but on coming nearer they found they were men in small leathern boats. These brought salmon for barter, laying it down on the rocks and signing to the English to do the same with their goods. If not satisfied the natives took up their fish and went away.
They were disposed to be friendly, and liked to climb the rigging of our ships, and "tried many masteries upon the ropes after our mariners' fashion."
Others reported less favourably of them, saying that their manner of life and food was "very beastly." "They be like to Tartars, with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, tawny in colour, wearing sealskins ... the women are marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks and round about the eyes."
On the 20th of August one of the Eskimos was brought on board the Gabriel, to whom Frobisher gave a bell and a knife, sending him ashore in the ship's boat with five of the crew to manage it. They were ordered not to go out of sight, but curiosity led them to land, and they never returned.
Five days were spent in coasting along the shore, in blowing of trumpets and firing guns to attract his men's attention, but all in vain; they were believed to have been murdered. Now Frobisher had only thirteen men left and no ship's boat; he felt he could do no more that year.
CAPTURE OF AN ESKIMO
CAPTURE OF AN ESKIMO
Frobisher had lost several men through the treachery of the natives, and determined to make an example of one of them. He enticed one by holding out a bell and other trinkets, and as soon as he came within reach he dropped the bell, seized the man by the arm, and hauled him bodily on board.
But before he left the land "he wrought a pretty policy; for, knowing how they greatly delighted in our toys, and especially in bells, he rang a pretty, low bell, making signs that he would give him the same that would fetch it." At first they feared to come, but at last one of them came near the ship's side to receive the bell. But as he stretched out his hand to take the bell, Frobisher let the bell fall and caught the man fast, plucking him with main force, boat and all, out of the sea on to the Gabriel's deck.
This was not the only time that Martin Frobisher thus proved his strength. But the Eskimo, when he found he was caught, bit his tongue in twain within his mouth, for very anger and vexation.
On the voyage home, as they passed Iceland, one of the crew was blown overboard by a violent gust of wind, but he chanced to lay hold of the foresail sheet and hung on till Frobisher, leaning down, picked him up and hauled him dripping aboard again.
On the 2nd of October the Gabriel entered the river at Harwich, having been rather less than four months absent from England, after exploring much northern territory, but without finding the desired passage to Cathay.
"Why! we thought you were all lost! The Michael came home and they said you were nowhere to be found!" was the first greeting they received.
But in London they were joyfully welcomed on October 9th, bringing with them the strange infidel and his boat, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of before, and whose language was neither known nor understood of any.
But the poor stranger, who could resist the inclemency of an Arctic winter, could not withstand our damp autumn gales; he caught a cold at sea, and lingered only a few weeks, after being the brief wonder of the town. But a more extraordinary discovery, and one which afterwards spoiled all Frobisher's attempts at scientific research, was this.
Philip Sidney, writing in 1577, says to his tutor: "I wrote to you about a certain Frobisher, who, in rivalry of Magellan, has explored the sea which, as he thinks, washes the north part of America. It is a marvellous history. He touched at a certain island in order to rest his crew; there by chance a young man picked up a piece of earth which he saw glittering on the ground and showed it to Frobisher; but he, being busy with other matters, and not believing that precious metals were produced so far north, considered it of no value. But the young man kept the earth by him till his return to London. And there, when one of his friends saw it shining in an extraordinary manner, he tested it and found it was the purest gold."
Another account says that this "earth" was a black stone, much like to sea-coal in colour; "and it fortuned a gentlewoman, one of the adventurers' wives, to have a piece thereof, which by chance she threw and burnt in the fire so long that at length, being taken forth and quenched in a little vinegar, it glittered with a bright glistening of gold." So the stuff was taken with some show of excitement to certain gold-refiners in the City to make an assay-thereof; and their verdict was that it held gold and that in very rich measure.
Immediately this news got bruited about, there was no small stir among the merchants and courtiers—all, seamen and men of learning alike, clamoured for another expedition; for they argued that it was of small importance to find a passage to Cathay, if treasures equally valuable lay so near at hand.
Queen Elizabeth and Burghley were both ready to throw economy to the winds, if good gold could be gotten by "Master Frobisher."
So a charter was granted to the "Company of Cathay," and Frobisher was to have 1 per cent. of all he found, together with a fixed yearly stipend. He was to take his own ships Gabriel and Michael, each of 25 tons burden, and a Queen's ship, the Aid, of 200 tons, and furnished with sixty-five sailors and twenty-five soldiers.
Among the crews were ten convicts—highway robbers—taken out of prison and lent to Frobisher as "likely men of their hands."
Frobisher had no relish for such gentry, as being men who might lead mutinies and do lawless deeds; he therefore dropped them on the English coast and carefully forgot to take them with him.
When Frobisher opened his "instructions" he found to his disgust that the finding of a North-West Passage was a very subordinate part of his duty. He was to go to Hall's Island, leave his large ship in safe harbour, and search for gold with the two smaller vessels. He was to plant a colony and capture eight or ten people of the country, "whom we mind shall not return again thither, and therefore you shall have great care how you do take them, for avoiding of offence towards them and the country."
On taking leave, Frobisher had the honour of kissing her Majesty's hand as he knelt before her, who dismissed him "with gracious countenance and comfortable words." At Gravesend they went to church and received the Sacrament—"prepared as good Christians towards God and resolute men for all fortunes."
At Harwich they tarried three days to take in provisions and weed out the convicts. The next place they stopped at was Orkney, where they found the people so strange that they fled from their pebble-built cottages with shrieks at their approach. "The goodman, wife, children, and others of the family eat and sleep on the one side of the house, and the cattle on the other—very beastly and rudely in respect of civility."
As they sailed north great fir-trees came floating by, torn by the roots out of the rocky soil by the great storms, also some icebergs came in their way. When they reached Greenland they could find no place to land; for three days Frobisher wandered up and down in a rowing-boat, but saw only a ragged coast-line of high mountains and snow-clad rocks, looking like lumps of ice in the misty sea. At Hall's Island all the ships met after being separated by a storm.
Then for five weeks Frobisher searched the land for gold ore, and found little. They met some natives near Frobisher's Straits and very pleasantly spent a great part of one day in exchanging merchandise, the Eskimos making all possible signs of friendship. But Frobisher, in obedience to the Queen's orders, tried to coax two of the natives into his boat, and at once the new-found friends were turned into enemies; for they ran for their bows and wounded several of our men. Soon after they were menaced by a host of icebergs, a thousand or more, and the whole night long was spent in evading these dangerous visitors. "Some scraped us, and some escaped us. In the end we were saved, God being our best steersman."
In the morning Frobisher called his men to thank God heartily for His protection of them in the time of danger. The storm cleared Frobisher's Straits of pack-ice, and sailing up they found a big fish embayed with ice, about twelve feet long, having a horn of two yards long growing out of its snout. This horn, "wreathed and straight, like in fashion to a taper made of wax," they took home and presented to the Queen at Windsor.
In their explorations they thought they saw much gold ore, and entered some houses built two fathoms under ground, round like ovens, and strengthened above ground by bones of whales, for lack of timber. The men were of the colour of a ripe olive, very active and nimble, clad in sealskins and hides of bear, deer, and fox. They loved music, could keep time to any tune that was sung to them, and could soon sing aptly any tune they heard. They were excellent marksmen, and when they shot at a fish they used to tie a bladder to the arrow, which, by buoying the dart, at length wearied out and killed the fish. All they had to burn was heath and moss, and they kindled a fire by fretting one stick against another.
"The women carry their sucking children at their backs and do feed them with raw flesh, which first they do a little chew in their own mouths." They believed in magic and said prayers to stones in order to cure a headache, and would lie on the ground face downwards, and by groans do obeisance to the foul fiend.
Once the English had a desperate fight with natives, who would never give in, but if mortally wounded, despairing of mercy, would leap headlong off the rocks into the sea, lest they should be eaten. In this fight in York Sound two women were caught; one being old was taken by the sailors for a witch, so they plucked off her buskins to see if she were cloven-footed! She was not; and the poor thing, for her ugly hue and deformity, was let go. The other was young and encumbered with a young child. As she was hiding behind some rocks, she was taken for a man and shot through the hair of her head; her child's arm too was pierced by an arrow. When brought to the surgeon she cried out, and the surgeon with kind intent applied salves to the baby's arm. But the mother plucked the salves away, and by constant licking of her tongue healed the wound.
By the middle of August Frobisher had loaded his ships with some two hundred tons of mineral, and as cold weather was coming he decided to return. So lighting a bonfire in the Countess of Warwick's Island, and all marching round it with blare of trumpets and echo of guns, they said good-bye to the "Meta Incognita" for this year, 1577.
The Aid arrived at Milford Haven on September 23rd and proceeded to Bristol, when they learnt that the Gabriel had already arrived, and that the Michael had sailed safely to Yarmouth.
Frobisher was invited to Windsor and there heartily thanked by the Queen. "Two hundred tons of gold ore you have brought, Master Frobisher? and pray, where shall this treasure be stored? That asks some considering."
Poor Frobisher! not a question asked about his geographical discoveries, or the North-West Passage; but two hundred tons of gold ore were enough to make all England merry—let us not blame the Queen. Most of it was deposited in Bristol Castle, the rest conveyed to the Tower of London; and the Queen sent a special messenger to remind the Warden that four locks were to be placed upon the door of the treasury, and that one key should be handed over to Martin Frobisher, one to Michael Lock, one to the Warden of the Tower, and one to the Master of the Mint. Ah! if only all these tons had contained gold, how happy would Master Frobisher have made his Queen and her subjects! But as yet all were agog with the wonderful news and with hopes of still more treasure to be gotten another year.
At once small parcels were doled out to the best gold-refiners in London, and at Bristol, where Sir William Winter controlled the ore. The refiners heated their furnaces—and themselves week after week. It was passing strange! they could not induce the gold to show itself.
On the 30th of November Michael Lock, Frobisher's great friend and financier, informed Secretary Walsingham that some unbelief in the quality of the mineral was growing up; and Winter at Bristol confessed that they had not been able to get a furnace hot enough "to bring the work to the desired perfection." The general verdict was that "the ore was poor in respect of that brought last year, and of that which we know may be brought the next year."
So the merchant adventurers, the Cathay Company, the Queen's Court, and all the little subscribers in county towns tried to comfort themselves. And to prove that the gold was there—must be there—a much larger expedition was preparing for 1578, Frobisher's third voyage!
Fifteen ships were being fitted out to bring home two thousand tons of good rock. One wonders where it all lies now!
Six months were occupied in the work; for they were to leave a colony of a hundred men in "Meta Incognita"; and for these they were to take out a strong fort of timber to defend the colonists against cold and enemies. Besides these Frobisher was to select one hundred and thirty able seamen, a hundred and sixty pioneers, sixty soldiers, besides gunners, carpenters, surgeons, and two or three ministers to conduct divine service according to the rites of the Church of England. Captain E. Fenton was to be vice-admiral and captain of the colony, and he, with Captains Yorke, Philpott, Best, and Carew, were to be Frobisher's chief advisers.
The ships assembled at Harwich on the 27th of May; on the 28th Frobisher and his fourteen captains repaired to the Court at Greenwich, and there they had a splendid "send-off." Her Highness bestowed on the General a fair chain of gold, and the other captains had the honour of kissing her hand. We may gather something to elucidate Frobisher's character from the code of instructions which he drew up to be observed by his fleet:—
"Art. 1. Imprimis. To banishe swearing, dice, cards' playing and all filthie talk, and to serve God twice a day with the ordinary service, usual in the Church of England.
"Art. 8. If any man in the fleete come upon other in the nyghte and haile his fellow, knowing him not, he shall give him this watch-worde, 'Before the world was God'; the other shall make answer, 'After God came Christ, His sonne'—Martyn Furbusher."
It was no uncommon thing in those days for an educated man to be rather vague about the spelling of words, and even his own name might have variations. Frobisher, with all his passionate temper, tried to serve God according to his lights; he was resolute that his men should do so too.
They sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May, and on the 6th of June fell in with some Bristol traders who had been assailed by French pirates, and were so wounded and hungry that they were like to perish in the sea, their food for many days having been olives and stinking water.
Frobisher sent his surgeons to dress their wounds, gave them store of food, and steering north-west reached the south of Greenland.
He this time found a good harbour, native boats, and tents. The people ran away, and Frobisher only took two white dogs, leaving some knives for payment.
Soon after, the Solomon struck a great whale with her full stern so violently that the ship stood still. "The whale thereat made a great and ugly noise and cast up his body and tail, and so went under water; within two days there was found a great whale dead, swimming above water." The creature had probably been asleep on the surface.
On the 2nd of July they had reached Frobisher's Straits, which to their discontent they found choked up with ice, and the ships were in great danger for some days. The Denis, of 100 tons, was struck by an iceberg and lost. She carried the movable fort; her crew only were saved.
Then followed a great storm, and they had much ado to defend the sides of their ships from "the outrageous sway and strokes" of the fleeting ice. For planks of timber of more than three inches thick were shivered and cut asunder by the surging of the sea and ice-floes, and the noise of the tides and currents reminded them of the waterfall under London Bridge. When the storm abated, under the lee of a huge iceberg Frobisher mustered his ships and caused the crews to offer up special thanksgivings for their great deliverance. After the storm came fogs, and they lost their bearings. Frobisher said the coast was in Frobisher Straits; Hall averred it was not, and they quarrelled like schoolboys; for "Frobisher fell into a great rage and sware that it was so, or else take his life."
However, Frobisher was afterwards proved to be in the wrong; he had discovered the great inlet, called subsequently "Hudson's Strait." This he followed up for three hundred miles, trying to persuade his comrades that they were in the right course. He himself began to see he had been misled, but a strong desire and hope came upon him—he would now find the passage to Cathay! But his crew cared little for such poor ambition; they talked against their leader behind his back, and soon openly demanded to be taken home. So they turned once more to the region of fog, and after imminent risks, the mariners being scared in the darkness and crying continually, "Lord, now help or never!" they cleared the corner of "Meta Incognita" on the 23rd of July. Then the mutineers murmured again because Frobisher wished to wait for the rest of the fleet; but Frobisher mastered them and brought his ships to the Countess of Warwick's Sound. There he was welcomed by the crews of the Judith and the Michael, and two days afterwards Hall appeared with the remaining vessels.
Special services of thanksgiving were offered and the mutinous men were forgiven, though they continued to be sulky and obeyed under protest. No colony could be left, because the timber for the fort was lost. When they reached Bear's Sound the flame of discontent blazed up so fiercely that it was even proposed to put their admiral ashore and leave him to perish in the snow. However, this was voted against by the majority, who perhaps were wondering what the Queen might say. For it was well known that she had a high opinion of her "trusty and well-beloved" Master Frobisher.
They embarked for home after they had filled their bunkers, and had hardly entered the open sea with their cargoes of mineral than a violent storm dispersed them; the Aid was nearly wrecked, and lost her pinnace. So with contrary winds and heavy storms they battled their way south, and reached port somewhere in England by October.
As before, their coming was welcomed with hearty delight, and once more the hopes of speculators stirred the enthusiasm of the nation.
One old chronicler writes: "Such great quantity of gold appeared that some letted not to give out for certaintie that Solomon had his gold from thence, wherewith he builded his temple."
The Queen had advanced £4000 herself, to show her belief in Frobisher and in the gold ore, and all were now waiting for the refiners' verdict. It came very rapidly—no gold to be got out of all these tons of rock! Enthusiasm and shouting gave way to abuse and slander, not only in the Court and City, but the mutinous part openly accused Frobisher of having misled them: "his vainglorious mind would not suffer any discovery to be made without his own presence."
Even Lock, Frobisher's good friend in time of prosperity, now led the opposition to him, and refused to pay the salary that was due to him.
There was an added bitterness in this which the world did not know of; for Frobisher had been obliged to leave his wife and children poorly provided for. A letter from Dame Isabel Frobisher, "the most miserable poor woman in the world," to Sir Francis Walsingham, describes to us a pitiful state of affairs. She complains that whereas her former husband had left her with ample means for herself and children, her present husband—whom God forgive!—had spent all she had, and "put them to the wide world to shift." In fact, they were starving in a poor room at Hampstead, and when Frobisher came home he doubtless comforted her, saying his salary was overdue, and all would soon be well. Then Frobisher goes into the City and is told he cannot have his salary! He is furious, for his temper was ever stormy, and calls Lock "a bankrupt knave." Lock writes to Walsingham and complains that Frobisher has raged against him like a mad beast. Others, who have met Frobisher and railed against him for bringing home worthless mineral, meet with similar ill-treatment. No wonder! for the man is well-nigh beside himself to find his pains and sufferings for England's sake miscalled neglect, to know that a pamphlet has been written against him as an arrogant, obstinate, and prodigal knave, "full of lying talk, impudent of tongue, and perchance the most unprofitable of all who have served the Company."
We need not wonder if Frobisher, having been spoilt by praise and flattery after his two former voyages, now lost his temper and swore that he would hip his masters "the Adventurers" for their ungenerous treatment. It was the search for this non-existent gold which cramped him and deprived his voyages of half their usefulness: the blame rested elsewhere.
Lock was thrown into the Fleet Prison for buying a ship for £200 and not being able to pay for it. No doubt other speculators were equally near ruin.
It is pleasant to know that the Queen never lost her belief in her trusty servant, though she, like others, must have chafed at the loss of her subscription.
"No more expeditions, an it please you," said the City merchants; but the wealthy courtiers, Leicester and Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke, and Warwick, proposed to try one more voyage, and Drake offered to fit out a ship of 180 tons. Frobisher went home to his wife in high glee: "It will all come right, pretty mistress; there is to be another voyage, and I, Martin Frobisher, the Admiral." Yet when the instructions came, the poor earnest discoverer was taken aback; for in the paper he read, "We will that this voyage shall be only for trade, and not for discovery of the passage to Cathay."
His heart sank within him—another search for gold! No! he would have none of it. He had the scientific spirit of Agassiz, who, when offered by New York any terms he liked, if he would come and lecture, replied by telegram: "Gentlemen, I have no time for making money."
So Frobisher bluntly refused to lead such an expedition, and Edward Fenton went in his place,—and it was to look for carracks in the South Seas!
How Frobisher and his lamenting wife lived for the next few years we do not know; but in 1580 he was appointed Clerk of her Majesty's ships, and once he went as captain on a Queen's ship, the Foresight, to prevent the Spaniards giving help to the Irish rebels in Munster.
In 1585 a fleet was fitted out to annoy the King of Spain in the West Indies, in return for his seizing all the English ships and seamen found in his ports.
Sir Francis Drake was admiral in the Elizabeth Bonadventure, Frobisher was vice-admiral in the Primrose; there were twenty-five vessels and 2300 men, and they were authorised by the Crown to make war upon King Philip of Spain. It was looked upon as a religious war in defence of freedom of conscience. Walsingham wrote to Leicester: "Upon Drake's voyage, in very truth, dependeth the life and death of the (Protestant) cause, according to men's judgment."
The fleet left Plymouth on the 14th of September 1585, and after receiving the submission of Vigo and doing some damage and liberating some English prisoners, they went to Palma, in the Canaries. Here, owing to "the naughtiness of the landing-place, well furnished with great ordnance," Drake and Frobisher were driven off with some loss. At Cape de Verde one of his men was murdered by a Spaniard, and the penalty exacted was the burning of Santiago, the hospital excepted.
Here a severe sickness broke out, extreme hot burning and continual agues, which led to "decay of their wits" and strength for a long time after; thereby they lost more than two hundred men. Thence they sailed to Dominica, St. Kitts, and Hispaniola. At San Domingo 1200 men were landed under Master Carlisle. It was New Year's Day, 1586, when a hundred and fifty Spanish horse came out to crush the invaders, but had to retire within the walls. There were two gates facing the sea; by these Carlisle entered, dividing his force and vowing that, if God would help them, they would meet in the market-place. This they succeeded in doing, and next day Drake and Frobisher brought their vessels into the harbour, and landed most of the men to share in the spoil.
San Domingo was held for a month and ransacked, but little gold or silver was found, only wine, oil, olives, cloth, silk, and good store of brave apparel, some of which they saved, doubtless for their wives at home.
The Spanish Governor and the troops had fled to a fort three miles from the town, and Drake sent a negro boy with a flag of truce to treat with them for their ransom. The poor lad was met half-way, and so beaten that he could scarcely crawl back to die at the admiral's feet.
Drake was not the man to leave such an outrage unavenged; he ordered the Provost-Marshal to carry two friars to the same spot and hang them there. He also sent a messenger to inform the Governor that two prisoners would be hanged every day until the murderer was given up.
The murderer was given up and hanged, and then the town was fired.
Similar proceedings were taken at Cartagena, though here the Spaniards fought more stoutly, and Indian archers "with arrows most villainously empoisoned" caused the death of many. Many English, too, "were mischiefed to death by small sticks, sharply pointed, that were fixed in the ground, with the points poisoned." As the attack was made in the dark, many were wounded and died. Cartagena was held for six weeks, and many courtesies passed between the Spaniards and the English. A ransom of £28,000 was paid, and Drake restored the town to its inhabitants.
They left Cartagena on the 31st of March, after blowing up the fort, and sailed along the coast of Florida, sacking and burning the Spanish settlements of San Juan de Pinos and St. Augustine; then they came to the island of Roanoke, where they found Raleigh's colonists on the verge of starvation, offered them help and a passage home. These colonists had behaved cruelly to the Indians and had suffered for it. They brought home a strange herb, which is thus described: "There is a herb," says Hariot, one of the colonists, "which is called by the natives uppowoc: the Spaniards call it tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder, they are to take the fume thereof, by sucking it through pipes made of clay, into their stomach and head, whence it purgeth superfluous phlegm and other gross humours, or openeth all the pores and passages of the body."
A month's sailing brought them to Portsmouth, but it was not considered a successful cruise, for they had lost seven hundred and fifty men, chiefly from disease, brought home two hundred pieces of brass cannon, and sixty thousand pounds, of which one-third was given to the soldiers and sailors as prize-money. But the chief gain was in the effect on Philip, who forbade the sailing of his Indian fleet until Drake and Frobisher returned.
These found on landing that nearly every gentleman in England was fitting out a ship for privateering against Spain; that Hawkins and Winter were busy overhauling the Queen's navy, and that England was expecting an invasion. No doubt Frobisher was soon kept busy too, and we will hope that the wife and children at Hampstead had less cause to complain of their poverty when they got their share of the prize-money. And how glad they all were when Frobisher rode home one evening and cried: "News! good wife. What think ye, lads and lasses? The great Armada is on her way at last."
"Alack! and wail-away! is that news for your poor family, Master Frobisher?"
"Ha! ha! it is the time when honest men come to the front, wife. In a word, you shall have no stint of rations henceforth; for I, Martin Frobisher, am to-day appointed Vice-Admiral, in command of a squadron in the Queen's fleet, and go down to Plymouth to-morrow. The Lord High Admiral, Lord Howard, hath writ right excellently of me to her Majesty to this effect nearly: 'Sir Francis Drake, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Frobisher, and Mr. Thomas Fenner are those whom the world doth judge to be men of the greatest experience that this realm hath.' So, God help us all and defend the right!"
Thus Frobisher, the vice-admiral, rode a-horseback down to Plymouth, and probably played many a game of bowls on the Hoe, while the captains waited for the signal. History tells how, when the call came, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher waited upon the Spanish rear squadron on that famous Sunday of the 21st of July, cutting in and out amongst the unwieldy galleons, and cheering one another on amid fire, smoke, and bellowing cannon. For six hours the English hornets pursued the Spanish monsters, and by three o'clock the Spanish fleet was disordered and confused, and the English seamen sat down to supper and prayers and letter-writing.
Anon they returned to the pursuit, and as luck would have it, the flagship of the Andalusian squadron under Don Pedro de Valdez came athwart the Triumph and Martin Frobisher. She had lost her foremast and was crippled for speed; so the Duke of Medina Sidonia left her in the lurch. "Left me comfortless in the sight of the whole fleet," wrote Pedro to King Philip. However, Frobisher signalled to Hawkins, and together they came buzzing round the lofty Spaniard with shot of guns. All through the night the flagship defended herself bravely; in the morning who should come through the mist but Drake in the Revenge.
Drake was a busy man just now and could not afford to waste powder, so he sent a pinnace to command them to yield. Don Pedro replied that he was four hundred and fifty strong; he spoke much of his honour and proposed conditions. Drake in return said, "I really have no leisure to parley. If thou wilt yield, do it presently and at once; if not, then I shall well prove that Drake is no dastard." How that terrible name struck a panic into the Spaniards! It was Drake! Don Pedro made haste to come on board the Revenge with forty men, and bowed with Spanish courtesy, paid Drake many compliments, and yielded up his sword. That day Don Pedro dined at Drake's table; his men were sent to Plymouth till their ransoms were paid. Drake's crew took 15,000 ducats in gold out of the spoil and shared it merrily among themselves.
But Frobisher and Hawkins had meant to take this galleon and share in all this prize-money and ransom-money. They had no time now to grumble or quarrel, as the fight was not yet over; but long after, on the 10th of August, when the crews were again on shore, Frobisher said angrily of Drake: "He thinketh to cozen us of our shares of the 15,000 ducats; but we will have our share, or I will make him spend the best blood in his belly, for he hath done enough of those cozening cheats already."
Don Pedro having defended his ship all night against Frobisher and Hawkins had then surrendered to the mere terror of Drake's name. A better-tempered man than Frobisher might have felt aggrieved at the ill-luck.
By Wednesday most of the fighting was over, and Lord Howard divided his fleet, now increased from sixty sail to a hundred in one week, into five squadrons, of which Frobisher was to command the fourth squadron and guard the narrow sea. On Thursday, 25th July, Frobisher had a hard fight against the Santa Anna and a Portuguese galleon. At last Lord Howard came to his rescue, and was so full of admiration for the prowess shown that the next day he knighted Frobisher and Hawkins.
By Monday the 29th of July, we find Frobisher in the Triumph, with Drake and Hawkins closely pursuing the Spaniards over the Flemish shoals; there they dashed in upon the crescent formation and drove some ashore to be wrecked, and others to the angry seas outside. The galleons of Spain were so tall that the English could not conveniently assault them; so "using their prerogative of nimble steerage, they came oftentimes very near upon the Spaniards, and charged them so sore that now and then they were but a pike's length asunder. And so, continually giving them one broadside after another, they discharged all their shot, both great and small upon them, spending a whole day in that violent kind of conflict."
Later, when the great Armada sped north under a rising gale, Frobisher and his squadron remained in the Channel to guard the shore against Parma.
In May 1590, he was sent as vice-admiral under Sir John Hawkins to cruise along the Spanish coasts and intercept the carracks from India. But Philip was keeping all his trading vessels in port; so they returned to England in October with so few prizes that the Queen expressed great displeasure. The next thing we hear of Frobisher is his being sent in a swift pinnace by the Queen to recall Walter Raleigh as he was starting for the Isthmus of Darien. Frobisher took Raleigh's place and commanded one squadron; his orders being to cruise about the coasts of Spain and "to amaze the Spanish fleet."
Fortunately a big Biscayan ship with a valuable cargo came in sight, was captured and sent home, to the Queen's well liking; but after that Frobisher had no more good fortune.
In 1594 Henry of Navarre wrote to Queen Elizabeth for help in dislodging a force of 3000 Spaniards from the Brittany coast. Raleigh pressed the subject at Court until Frobisher was sent with ten ships to try and save Brest from falling into Philip's hands. Frobisher landed his troops and joined Sir John Norris, who was about to attack Fort Crozon, near Brest. The Spaniards made a stout resistance and many English fell. The Queen, hearing this news, wrote to Norris advising more caution: "The blood of man ought not to be squandered away at all adventures." She wrote, too, in November to Frobisher:—
"Trustie and well-beloved, wee greet you well ... we perceive your love of our service and your owne good carriage, whereby you have won yourself reputation.... We know you are sufficientlie instructed howe to prevent any soddaine mischief, by fire or otherwise, upon our fleet under your charge...."
So we see the Queen caring for her men and her ships, and frankly commending her trusty admiral for his foresight—but letting him see that she was ever watchful over his doings.
The Crozon fort was taken and razed to the ground, but the brave Frobisher was wounded in the hip by a musket-ball. It would have been a trifle in our days of scientific dressing, but the surgeon, when he extracted the ball, left the wadding behind; the wound festered, fever and death ensued. Here is Frobisher's last letter to the Lord High Admiral as he lay wounded:—
"I was shott in with a bullett at the batterie, so as I was driven to have an incision made to take out the bullett; so as I am neither able to goe nor ride. And the mariners are verie unwilling to goe except I goe with them myself. Yet, if I find it come to an extremitie, we will do what we are able: if we had our vittels, it were easily done."
That was just like Frobisher! though he lies on his death-bed, he is ready to go with his men to front the foe, "if it come to an extremitie."